W.W. Law: Piecing Together History to Overcome Segregation

Westley Wallace Law wore many hats—postal clerk, NAACP chapter president, preservationist—and each role felt like a geometric facet of the same mission: dismantle segregation and safeguard Black heritage. In 1961, when he organized a quiet lunch-counter sit-in, he mapped protest routes with surgical precision. His strategic mind treated Savannah’s streets like the interlocking planes in your third painting, each angle representing a legal challenge, each color block a coalition: students, clergy, labor unions. After desegregation victories, Law turned his focus to memory. He fought to protect Laurel Grove South Cemetery from developers, refusing to let Savannah bury its Black past beneath parking lots. By founding the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum, he assembled archival fragments—photos, oral histories, artifacts—into a living cubist mosaic of Black Savannah. That bold profile in your art reflects Law’s unwavering gaze on a more just city.